rocketboy

They do look a bit bling in that pic, almost chrome like. They have a machined lip and spoke faces, so look real classy in person. This pic has them in better detail. On a side note, I have spent hours getting the paint to a real nice deep finish, clay bar, paint clean, polish, wax. It's in need of another polish and clean though.

Some nice rims posted up in this thread! I'm a big fan of RPF1's, especially on R34's. I'm rather fond of my Brabus rims, knowing there probably isn't any other skyline with these on is a bonus. Sorry for the crap pic. Looks better in person with the now gold calipers under them.

If they are cross overs worthy of showing off, then show them off in the boot or similar! Apart from cable cost, it will take bugger all extra effort to run two runs of cable per speaker. But so long as they stay dry, anywhere will work - inside door card, kick panels (if they fit) boot etc.

Cheers, that's my old system, my new one is in the process of being built. Too many projects! But will look much better and has much nicer equipment to. I have relocated the fuse box next to the battery, to between battery and seat backs. HICAS comp was moved so I could house the RF sub amp under the parcel tray. And where the Kenwood amps are now shows off the orbital battery, with Tsunami battery terminals , and matching fuse block and distros. Still a fair bit of work to do on it, like mounting amps, processor and disc changer - yes, I am old school.

Ah yes, I had my amps mounted on a plywood board in my last install. It went across to the other size and had some brackets made up on the drivers side to help keep it stable. Ended up looking like this- Works well actually, and can save some boot space. Obviously not in my old install!

I did my boot floor in my R33, it wasn't fully deadened from factory, just mostly under the spare tyre. It made a big difference to exhaust volume. My exhaust was never overly loud, but at the time I had nothing in my boot, after the deadening was applied, it was definately quieter. For the engine, do the firwall. The more you do the less cabin noise. Doing the doors will help with road noise as will doing the floor pan.

This is the only other photo I have sorry. Were off the cell phone.

HI all, I don't get on the forums much these days, but I thought I'd share am easy way to fix gutter rash/minor curb damage on your rims. Note: This will generally only work on silver/polished rims with small lip on edge of the main lip (if ya get what I mean!). But may be able to be used on other wheel for various functions such as sanding before paint/powder coating etc. A while ago I bought some second hand Brabus rims for my ride. They were in good general condition, with the usual minor nicks here and ther. One of the front wheels had gutter rash all around the outer lip. It wasn't too deep, but it was damn ugly. Now, I am a cheap bastard being half asian, but I also love giving things a crack. I had heard the local rim repairer couldn't do 19" rims, but never bothered to investigate, so I decided I'd give fixing these a go myself. First I went out and bought two cheapish files, a straright cut bastard, and a plain flat bastard. I was having new tyres put on, so had the current Hankooks removed as I was gonna sell them off anyway. While the tyre was off I got down to work and did this. First photo is of original curbage when I bought them. And I have used the same method twice, second time was for my bros small curb incident. (He did send me a nice set of Bahco files though!) Original curbage around lips lip! All the way around Tyre is removed from wheel, car is jack up (axle stands used of course!) at the back and rim put on. Essentially this is the poor mans lathe. So to clairfy. The cars rear end is up, and on axle stands. I can't remember if I removed the othe side wheel, but I think I did. I tryed the car in 1st gear with the engine at warm idle. It was a bit too slow. I found second gear with the car at idle to be a great speed for the wheel to spin at. And basically I sit there with the files (straight cut bastard and a standard flat bastard) and work the curb rash away. Here you can see metal I have worked from the rim. After the rash was removed, I did a rough sand, then a finer sand. I can't remember the grits, but I'd imagine 180-200 and 300-400. First time I did it, I was having new tyres put on anyway, and second time round I had the tyres rotated (staggered set, directional tyres,can't rotate whole wheel). So all up it cost me only time and about $30 for the two files. After the file I sanded it to a smoother finish, then applied a little metal polish. No need to paint as it looks fine how it is! Pretty easy and cheap for an arvos work. As you can see, this won't work on all rims, but may be adapted to do some of the work yourself if you are having your wheels painted/powder coated etc. Please also note that safety must be considered paramount at all times. Axle stands must be used at all times and a second person should be there in case of emergency. Keep hands away form the wheel spokes. You get a hand caught in there and your in a whole world of hurt. I take no responsibility if you are injured trying this process out. Good luck, I hope this helps some of you! Richie

Time for a new clutch. Usual way to check for a slipping clutch is to plant boot in 3rd, if the revs fly high, but your whale doesn't, then that is a slipping clutch. Time for a brand spanker.

I doubt anyone can answer that! It depends on you, how you like your music/bass, the install etc. The most important part of installing any given subwoofer is to ensure you have a box of the right design and size to suit both the sub and how you like your bass to sound. Crossfire used to be a good reputable brand, I'm not sure on the models, but your gear list sounds like a great package. As said previously, install will determine how good it will sound. Plenty of more in depth info around the webs if you need it.

If it comes back ok, maybe there's a short in the rear speaker wiring?

Hmm, weird, have you tryed a different source unit? Even and external one like a discman/ipod etc? Just to see if it was from the headunit.

What headunit do you have?

Had a quick skim read of the thread and would have to agree and disagree on a few things. The followong is just my opinion... Most subs including lower to mid level subs can sound great in a box that has been designed and built well. As a general rule, you'd use a sealed enclosure for SQ and a ported box for higher volume - and that is certainly not to say a ported box won't sound as good as a sealed, just a generalisation. Also, your sub can handle more power in a sealed enclosure as the pressure inside the box helps stiffen up the speaker. I don't believe the coild resistance has a huge amount to do with SQ vs SPL, usually dual 2ohm coils and lower resistance are aimed at SPL, I understand this. But there are great sounding subs with a dual 2ohm config. Dual 1ohm or smaller will certainly almost always be aimed at SPL. The resitance of the coils allows you to get more power out of your amp. Example, A 2ohm sub can be wire 3 ways - series which would show the amp a 4ohm load, parallel would show a 1ohm load and a single VC being run would show a 2ohm load (although halve the sub power handling because you are simply using only half the motor). Now, most amps will output different amounts of power depending what load you put across the speaker terminals. I will use a mono amp for example. My RF mono outputs 500wrms when a 4ohm load is put on it. When a 2ohm load is out in, it will push out 750wrms, and if it has a 1ohm load it will but 1000wrms into the sub. So you see as the resitance is lowered, the more power the amp will put out. Be careful as only higher end amps are rated to handle a 1ohm load. The type R subs are ok IMO, more than ok for your average joe and can and will sound great in a well designed and built box. Sure, you can get better, but for a small part of the audio spectrum, I'd spend more on a good set of front components as this is where you set up your soundstage. Get that right and the sub should blend into the fornt soundstage well. As for matching your subs to a good amp, I'd simply look for a good brand amp (so you know it puts out the power it says it does, there are so many amps that stae they are mega wattage and have small fuses) that matches your power requirements or is close. Fusing is a good sign of false advertising.. Bank on around 1amp of fusing for a 100wrms output on the amp - exmaple; an amp that states puts out 1000wrms should have around 100amps worth of fuses built in. 90 amps is fine as a lot of good 1kw monos use 3 x 30amp fusing. So if you have 2 subs, each running dual 4ohm VC's, each sub will be a 2ohm load if wired in parallel or 8ohm in series. If you use a mono, you can wire two parallel wired subs to the mono to show a total load of 1ohm (dual 4ohm sub wired in paralle = 2ohm + another 2ohm = 1ohm). So if you have a 1ohm stable amp that puts out 1000wrms@1ohm, each sub will be getting 500wrms. If you load said amp with two series wired subs: Dual 4ohm wired series=8ohm + another 8ohm = 4ohm load (resistance is halved). The amp sees 4ohms and produces 500wrms and therefore 250wrms to each sub. Hopefully this shows the relationship between resistance (ohms) and amp loading. Another thing to think about is speaker (in this case) sensitivity as this can have an effect on output/volume. A 500wrms sub(that means the sub can handle 500wrms continously, it is not a power output figure of the speaker) that has an efficiency of say 86db will be quieter than a 500wrms sub with and efficiency of 93db on the same amp. This is not black and white as different companies use different measurement for efficiency, but I won't get into that here. I hope some of this helps you out. And let me emphasise the importance of a well built box! the right volume and port size (if ported) will make an average rated sub sound good. And sound deadening is a must for anyone serious about car audio - search these forums or forums like Talk Audio, Nzicemag etc for more info. Cheers, Rich

Yeah, your rears may be out of phase meaning the wires connecting to the speakers will be on the wrong terminals. Swap wires around on one new speaker and see if that makes it louder. Also, your new speakers may be less efficient meaning they need more power to achieve the same volume. Lastly, the speakers may have a break in time. They may become slightly louder after say 10-20hours of use as the cone suspension loosens up (cone surround and spider). You'll often hear of audiophiles breaking in new speakers by playing systems with a low-medium level volume or even just tones. Your speakers won't be high end, but perhaps will loosen up a little still. Only other thing to check is to make sure the mounting surface is nice and tight, not space between speaker and mounting surface, I usually run a strip of draught seal or similar around the mounting hole on standard installs just to make sure of this.

Not from a skyline, but it may be of some help... I have a Rover tomcat that I needed to get keys made for, I took the door barrel out and brought it into my local locksmith. They made the key up - piece of piss. But the ignition barrell had an extra tumbler/slider (or what ever the term is) at the key tip, so it didn't work. The original guy at the locksimth wasn't overly keen to help, but I got onto another guy there who was happy to help. He just took a bit off the end of the key - 1 notch worth - didn't work, but I took it back each time for one more notch to be taken off the tip until I was up to the last notch and thank goodness it worked. Now I just have to rebuild the engine So the ignition barrel may have an extra bit at the end to work. May not however, But I thought my method was easier than pulling an ignition barrel out. Also, if your car is fairly new, it may need a key through the dealer as it may have electronic entry or a transponder of sorts. Other than that, your locksmith is the way to go.

As I said, get it on to a good charger like this one - http://www.projecta.com.au/catalogue/cid/54/asset_id/153/ - it may be salvagable, otherwise, if you keep using your alternator to charge it, it will die (if it hasn't already). The Optimas handle deep cycling(full discharge/flat) well, but you do have to charge them up properly when they run below 11 volts in my experience.

I had a similar issue with a Exide Orbital blue top. Basically I came to this conclusion - battery had been deepcycled a few times (fine as the blutop is a dedicated deepcycle battery), but after each deep cycle it should have a good high voltage/ high amp charge, the factory system/alternator cannot provide this. It still charges the battery, but performance/capacity is lost. A hand full of deep cycles evenuated in my battery just getting rather damn hot and not holding a charge. A friend bought a Projecta digital charger that has a high amp and voltage charging setting (with 7 stage charging) and also a battery "reconditioner" mode for batteries that are fairly poked. Basicallly it should be able recondition nearly poked batteries, mine was too far gone so I had to buy a new one, hard eggs to swallow when I bought mine new only few years ago and they are now around 5spot over here in NZ. My local battery guy also said I was lucky not to cook the alternator. By yellow hat dry cell, do you mean it is an Optima or similar battery? The battery will hold heat for a long time as it will have lead based plates and if gel cell they will be sandwhiched in spirals and basically retain heat well. Sounds like it's poked, have you had issues of the battery not holding the charge for long? i.e. don't drive it for a couple days and it won't start? So, get it onto a good charger like the one mentioned above (http://www.projecta.com.au/catalogue/cid/54/asset_id/153/). Otherwise, buy a new one, yours sounds well and truely cooked. Make sure it is charged correctly after any major drains in the future. I'll be sticking mine on the Projecta every 6 months or after any deep cycles from now on. Hope this helps.

It does exactly that and is all back together driving fine. Cheers for advice guys.

Yes, my R33 definately has a bleed nipple on the master clutch cylinder. And I have been informed that the thrust/throw out bearing should sit up against the pressure plate with minimal force, so seems there is no real problem...yay!

Ok, I had a clutch issue and have put everything back together (even managed to get the gearbox in by myself on the garage floor!). The Exedy guys said the pressure plate forks had the thrust bearing resting on it constantly - I never had any slippage issues. Before GB was taken off and also once re-installed, I noticed the slave cylinder slowly pushes the fork so the bearing rests on the pressure plate forks (as suggested by Exedy). There isn't mush pressure holding it there hence the no slipping of the clutch. Now I believe the fork should have some free play and not 'rest' against the pressure plate forks right? There is a little free play in the pedal like there should be and clutch take up point is about 2/3 - 3/4 of the pedal stroke (closer to the floor). I understand I can adjust the master cylinder piston to change pedal freeplay and take up point, but I don't see how this will stop the slave from extending fully. Could there be air in the system? Can anyone shed any light as to whats wrong and what can be done? I just don't wanna go bleeding the system if it needs it or adjusting the master cylinder piston rod. Thanks peeps!

Any chance of shipping to NZ? If so, how much to have it sent to Wellington? Cheers!

Looks pretty good. I have a few mates using them and they all think they are worth it even for street. Improves pedal feel etc.

I have done this adjustment, but must have not backed off enough, I think 5-6 clicks from shoes locking the hub. Anyway, the shoes must be naturaly rubbing to much as the hub and wheel heated up fairly hot. I could move the hub easily enough once adjusted, but you could hear the shoes move with the hub a little till they hit the shoe stop pin. Just thought I'd mention it so peeps could be aware this can happen. Or maybe I just didn't put the brakes back together properly.

That reminded me, woulda totally forgotten when put everything back together, just ordered one. Cheers!